“We must respect the other fellow’s religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.”

- H.L. Mencken

A minor change to the blog’s format: I’ve moved the “Events Calendar” section to the bottom of the day’s entry, so you don’t have to scroll through its increasing sprawl to get to the rest of the links. Okay, nobody’s actually complained about this, but I noticed it anyway. You’re welcome.

Today’s review covers the first volume of Carlos Trillo and Eduardo Risso’s crime-noir series Chicanos. And in the news…

Headlines

• Good news on the free-speech front: Last Thursday, a court in Denmark has rejected a suit brought forth against the Jyllands-Posten newspaper by seven Danish Muslim groups, who claimed that the Muhammed cartoons insulted their religion. Florida’s WHDH has the Associated Press report:

  The court conceded that some Muslims saw the drawings as offensive, but found there was no basis to assume that “the purpose of the drawings was to present opinions that can belittle Muslims.”

  “The dismissal of the lawsuit against the newspaper, which was expected, confirms the ongoing intention to harm our religion and our prophet,” said Mahmoud al-Kharabsheh, an independent legislator who heads the Jordanian parliament’s legal committee.

  The plaintiffs plan to appeal the verdict, spokesman Kasem Ahmad told Danish radio, adding that he feared Muslims around the world would be upset by the ruling.

  Muslims around the world may have been upset by the ruling, but so far it hasn’t sparked violence or death threats. The Irish Examiner offers a round-up of reactions in the Islamic world:

  In Lebanon, where protesters set fire to the building housing the Danish consulate in February, professor Radwan el-Sayyed said the verdict was a “misinterpretation of freedom of expression”.

  El-Sayyed, who teaches Islamic Studies at the Lebanese University, said Muslims should not regard the court’s decision as an affront.

  He did not expect a repetition of February’s riots because, he said, people know that they were counterproductive.

  I think the ruling got it exactly right. It’s one thing to be respectful of other people’s feelings, but this shouldn’t be seen as an excuse to capitulate to intimidation against speaking one’s mind. Remember, this whole thing started because an author couldn’t find an illustrator willing to provide art for a book on the Islamic prophet. The cartoons in question don’t “insult Islam”; they questioned an atmosphere where arguments over religion are likely to be answered by threats of violence. If this sounds like an extremist position, ask yourself: Had hardline Christians responded to Andres Serrano’s Piss Christ by threatening to kill Serrano and anyone who exhibited his work, would the rest of us have simply accepted it as the expression of a persecuted religious sect? To ask the question is to answer it. We are free to tolerate, and some of us even enjoy, works that satirize and ridicule Christianity precisely because it doesn’t provoke a hail of gunfire. We worry about Muslim rage precisely because it might. The “controversy,” then, isn’t driven by a demand for religious tolerence, but rather an argument between a slim minority of Muslims who’d kill Danish cartoonists, Salman Rushdie, Dutch filmmakers who dare to question the violence against women prevalent in many Muslim countries, or anyone else perceived as criticising their religion — and people who believe we should be free to speak our minds without fear of bloodshed and mayhem.

  In his latest Rants & Raves column (temporary link), comics historian R.C. Harvey quotes Danish Prime Minister Fogh Rasmussen as saying, “The believers, no matter of what religion, cannot demand that others outside their believers’ circle should observe their rules of conduct, order, dogma and doctrines that apply to the individual believer.” I don’t think the stakes can be put more simply than that. In any event, it’s nice to see saner heads prevail on both sides of the argument, this time around. (Above: One of the cartoons that kicked off this whole sorry nonsense; ©2006 Jyllands-Posten, I think.)

• I missed this last week, but it bears mentioning: Gemstone Publishing has decided to suspend four of its six Disney-reprint comics titles, due to soft market conditions, according to the weblog Disney Comics Worldwide. Confirmation would seem to be present in Gemstone’s subscriptions page, which now offers only Uncle Scrooge and Walt Disney’s Comics & Stories. I mention this because Gemstone Publishing is owned by Steve Geppi, who also owns Diamond Comics Distributors, the Direct Market’s sole distributor. In short: Even Steve Geppi can’t sell Disney comics in comics shops, and he’s the closest the market has to a dictator.

  We’re all fucked, aren’t we?

  (Right: Sample cover from the Gemstone version of Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories taken from the above-linked subscription page; ©2006 Disney Enterprises, Inc.)

Graphic Novels

• Congratulations to Michel Rabagliati, whose book Paul Moves Out has made the final nominees list for the Ontario Library Association’s Golden Oak Award. (Link via Peggy Burns.)
• Cancer Vixen author Marisa Acocella Marchetto’s not done inspiring press profiles yet: Today, she’s the subject of a CBC News report by Lorrayne Anthony, and a review by Dan Murphy of New York’s Buffalo News.
• Wired News copy chief Tony Long is dismayed to discover that Gene Luen Yang’s American Born Chinese has been nominated for a National Book Award. Writing for Bits of News, Alexander Rubio patiently explains why Long doesn’t know what he’s talking about. (Related: Neil Gaiman’s reponse to Long’s essay, and a response from the folks at Slave Labor and Forbidden Planet.)

• Comics historian Paul Gravett offers a look at the life and art of Corto Maltese creator Hugo Pratt. (Above: undated Corto illustration taken from this website.)
• Sammy Harkham reviews the second volume of Drawn & Quarterly’s collected Frank King-era Gasoline Alley strips, Walter and Skeezix. (Link via Tom Spurgeon.)
• While I’m taking his name in vain: Spurgeon also offers up reviews of Osamu Tezuka’s Ode to Kirihito, Max’s Bardin the Superrealist and the first volume of Joann Sfar’s Klezmer.
• Laurel Maury reviews Brian K. Vaughan and Niko Henrichon’s Pride of Baghdad for the Los Angeles Times.
• Writing for the English-language edition of Japan’s Daily Yomiuri, Tom Baker looks at Bill Willingham’s new collection of Fables short comics stories for Vertigo/DC, 1,001 Nights of Snowfall. Related: A review of same by Joe McCulloch.
• Also at the Daily Yomiuri: Stephen Taylor examines the latest offering from Britain’s comic-book bad boys, Viz Annual: The One-String Banjo.
• Missouri’s Joplin Independent weighs in on a new graphic novella by Alec Stevens, the Christian-conversion tale Sadu Sundar Singh.
• Randy Myers offers short reviews of a variety of graphic novels for California’s Contra Costa Times.
• “Pow, bam, boom — Wow! That’s some deep reading!” Yes, it’s time for our weekly “comics grow up” essay on graphic novels, written by someone who apparently only picked one up for the first time an hour after getting the story assignment. This one’s by Robert Seltzer, writing for Texas’ San Antonio Express-News.

Comic Books

• PopMatters reprints a South Florida Sun-Sentinel piece in which reporter Sean Piccoli profiles Golden Age comics illustrator Allen Bellman, who drew stories for Timely/Atlas for over a decade. Related: An extensive interview with Bellman, conducted by Michael Vassallo.

Manga

• MangaNews summarizes a Japanese-language report on the state of the native manga market, and the results look eerily like the North American market, with respectable growth in book collections, digital sales and foreign licensing compensating for a steep drop in serialized-comics sales — a 70% drop in the last ten years, to be precise. “As a result, with sales number of tankobon exceeding the sales of manga magazines, the manga market is rebounding for the first time,” the report concludes. Simon Jones offers color commentary, while David Welsh wonders if the growth in the sale of electronic copies read on cellphones isn’t perhaps the most significant news found in the report.
• ICv2 notes that while the first volume of the manga Bleach has received a bump in sales following the premiere of the anime adaptation on Cartoon Network’s “Adult Swim” programming bloc, it’s only received two-thirds of the bounce enjoyed by Naruto after it’s anime version debuted on the same channel. The report then notes that “it’s too soon to tell” if this augurs well or ill for the series in the long term. Make of that what you will.
• Why do Japanese manga magazines use colored paper? ComiPress explains.

• Carlos Santos interviews manga-influenced cartoonist Amy Reeder Hadley about her new book for Tokyopop, Fool’s Gold, for Anime News Network. (Above: an illustration nicked from the artist’s website, ©2006 Amy Reeder Hadley.)
• MangaCast offers a review of the Japanese-language second volume of Kaoru Mori’s Victorian romance series, Emma (spoiler warnings apply).
• Johanna Draper Carlson reviews the first volume of Takashi Hashiguchi’s competition-breadmaking manga series, Yakitate!! Japan.
• The first volume of Yua Kotegawa’s manga series Line is reviewed by Kitty Sensei for the Malaysia Star.
• If you’re going to open a Department of Manga at your college, as did Japan’s Kyoto Seika University, you might like a little publicity, right? Wrong, if the resulting article looks like Masuo Kamiyama’s report for the Mainichi Daily News, entitled “Academia dumbing down to keep enrollments up.” (To be fair, KSU actually gets away without too much damage in the piece, but still.)
• Mitch Hagmaier wonders why manga is shelved by title in bookstores, rather than by author. (Link via MangaBlog.)

Comic Strips

• Tom Spurgeon speaks to Drawn & Quarterly art director Tom Devlin about the forthcoming collection of Tove Jansson’s highly regarded European comic strip, Moomin.

Editorial Cartoons

• Blogger Andy Towle points to a pair of entries from gossip website Gawker, documenting the homophobic witlessness of New York Post political cartoonist Sean Delonas. (Above: Oct. 27 cartoon by Delonas, ©2006 NYP Holdings, Inc.)

• Have political cartoons by Harvard Crimson editor Kathleen Breeden been plagiarized from other artists? Crimson staff writer Brittney Moraski reviews multiple instances where exactly that may have taken place. (Above left: Oct. 12 cartoon by Walt Handelsman, ©2006 Newsday; Above right: Oct. 25 cartoon by Kathleen Breeden, ©2006 The Harvard Crimson, Inc.)

Digital Comics

• Not directly comics-related, but: Reporting from this year’s American Magazine Conference, MediaWeek’s Lucia Moses notes that publishers are increasingly embracing the Web as a content-delivery system.
• Brian Warmoth interviews Girl Genius creators Phil and Kaja Foglio for Wizard Magazine about their move from print comics to Internet serialization.

Cartooning

• New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast is profiled by James Sullivan for the Boston Globe. (Above: a Roz Chast cartoon reprinted in The Complete Cartoons of The New Yorker, ©2004 Advance Magazine Publishers, Inc.)
• Writing for Canada’s Globe and Mail, Guy Dixon talks to Ralph Steadman about his collaborations with late journalist and madman Hunter S. Thompson. (Link via ArtsJournal.)
• Andrew Dansby looks back upon the life and career of morbidly funny cartoonist Edward Gorey for the Houston Chronicle.
• Writing for Maryland’s Frederick News-Post, Pamela Rigaux looks in on a gallery exhibition of some of the more sophisticated images produced by Theodore Geisel, a.k.a. Dr. Seuss.
• I missed Janet Maslin’s review of the Linda Davis biography, Charles Addams: A Cartoonist’s Life, when it first ran in the New York Times, but fortunately there’s always the International Herald Tribune reprint. Look, ma, no subscriber firewall! Related: reviews of the same book by Jonathan Yardley of the Washington Post and Mark Voger of New Jersey’s Asbury Park Press.

Comics Industry

• In anticipation of Marvel’s upcoming Q3 report, scheduled for release next Monday, Anders Bylund of The Motley Fool sings the praises of the company’s film-production deal, which revolves around a line of credit offered by Merrill Lynch. A bit more puzzling is Juan Carlos Arancibia’s historical essay for Investor’s Business Daily, which traces Marvel’s stock-market record from 1991 to 1998, but never explains the market-related reasons for the company stock’s wild fluctuations, or even mentions Ron Perelman by name. Weird.
• Marc-Oliver Frisch offers month-to-month sales comparisons through September for DC Comics, courtesy of The Beat.

Copyright Law

• It’s not quite a sweeping ruling, but the fair-use appropriation of found media imagery got a mild boost last Friday, when neo-Warholian artist Jeff Koons successfully convinced the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit that a painting based upon collage of images, which included a Gucci fashion photograph by Andrea Blanch, was “transformative” and therefore protected under the fair-use doctrine. Blanch had sued Koons after seeing his painting Niagara on display at the Guggenheim in New York City. Mark Hamblett of the New York Law Journal has the details.

Local News

• A life-sized 120-pound statue of Dennis the Menace, originally commissioned by Hank Ketcham for a Monterey, CA public park, was stolen on Wednesday, leading to outraged community leaders and a $5000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the perpetrators, according to a report from the San Jose Mercury-News.
• Miami comics creators David Schwartz and Sean Wang, who have a new superhero title coming out from Image, are profiled by James Burnett of the Miami Herald.

Comics Culture

• Writing for the Times of India, Sumit Jha explains how “comic clubs” for children have made comic books more popular in Kanpur.
• Is there anything funnier than listening to a comics nerd discussing what women want?
• Your Drawn! link of the day: the oddball art of Travis Lampe.
• Your When Fangirls Attack link of the day: There’s an anti-yaoi Livejournal community? Huh. How about that.
• Your Scans_Daily link of the day: I wasn’t previously aware of this, but apparently there’s a longstanding tradition of self-mutilation in manga.

Events Calendar

Today:

• Oct. 30 (New York City, NY): Dame Darcy will be discussing and signing her illustration work for the recent book The Illustrated Jane Eyre. It all takes place at the Barnes & Noble in Greenwich Village, beginning at 7:30 PM. Details here.

This week:

• Oct. 31 (Evanston, IL): Revered cartoonist Gahan Wilson will be making a rare in-store appearance at Comix Revolution, starting at 6PM. The store’s website doesn’t actually mention it, alas, but you can get the major details here.
• Oct. 31 (San Jose, CA): Slave Labor Graphics opens up its warehouse for a festively creepy Halloween party from 6-9PM, with Haunted Mansion creators Dan Vado and Mike Moss on-hand and an opportunity to see displayed art and otherwise hang out with comics-type people for the holiday. Details here.
• Oct. 31 (London, England): Paul Gravett will host a discussion on graphic novels with creators Tara McPherson, David Lloyd and Mike Carey, at Foyle’s Bookshop beginning at 6:30PM. Details here.
• Oct. 31 (Washington DC): Marjane Satrapi’s U.S. tour continues with a stop at the Politics and Prose Bookstore and Coffeehouse, where she’ll be appearing at 7PM. Details here.
• Oct. 31 (New York City, NY): Allison Cole and Lauren Weinstein will take part in the latest Grace Comics Showcase, starting at 7PM. Admission is free. It all happens at Mo Pitkin’s on Avenue A.
• Nov. 1 (Los Angeles, CA): Golden Apple Comics’ Hollywood location recently moved, and will be holding its grand re-opening today. It begins at 10AM with a ribbon-cutting ceremony presided over by Stan Lee; from 7-9PM, Kabuki creator David Mack will be making an in-store appearance.
• Nov. 1 (Portland, ME): Scott McCloud’s Neverending Making Comics Tour makes its only Maine stop today, with a presentation at the Maine College of Art’s Baxter Building beginning at 7PM. Details here.
• Nov. 1 (New York City, NY): Frederic Tuten and Paul La Farge will discuss Hergé’s Tintin series, in commemoration of the re-release of Tintin in the New World, with an introduction by La Farge. The event takes place at the Barnes & Noble at Astor Place, beginning at 7PM. Details here.
• Nov. 2 (Washington DC): “Cartoon America: Highlights from the Art Wood Collection of Cartoon and Caricature” opens today at the Library of Congress, in the Great Hall of the Thomas Jefferson Building, featuring 100 works by such comics masters as Thomas Nast, Rube Goldberg, Bill Mauldin, Patrick Oliphant, Winsor McCay, George Herriman, Chic Young, Milt Caniff, Charles Schulz, Lynn Johnston, Peter Arno, William Steig, Al Hirschfeld, David Levine, John Held and many others. On view through Jan. 27, 2007, the exhibition is free and open to the public from 10AM-5PM, Monday-Saturday. Details here.
• Nov. 2 (San Francisco, CA): Internationally renowned cartoonist Ralph Steadman will present a slideshow and discussion based upon his new book, The Joke’s Over, a memoir of his longtime friendship with the late Hunter S. Thompson, at Booksmith on Haight Street, beginning at 7PM. Details here.
• Nov. 2 (Los Angeles, CA): Drew Friedman will be signing copies of his new book Old Jewish Comedians at Skylight Books on Vermont Avenue, starting at 7:30 PM. Details here. (Hat tip: Buenaventura Press.)
• Nov. 2 (Portland, OR): Join Jamie S. Rich and Joëlle Jones at the release party for their new book, 12 Reasons Why I Love Her, at Floating World Comics from 7-10PM. Details here.
• Nov. 3 (San Francisco, CA): Marjane Satrapi continues her North American tour in support of the English-language edition of her book Chicken With Plums, with a discussion and signing at Booksmith on Haight Street, beginning at 7PM. Details here.
• Nov. 3 (San Francisco, CA): Anime Companion author Gilles Poitras will be discussing manga and anime at Cody’s Books on Stockton Street, beginning at 7PM. Details here.
• Nov. 3-4 (Glasgow, Scotland): “Lost in Translation: Do Comics Need Language?” is a two-day conference held at the Alliance Française/Goethe Institute with talks, panels, discussions and a comic workshop. Scheduled guests include Paul Gravett, Marc Baines, Arne Bellstorf and Metaphrog. Details here.
• Nov. 4 (Dearborn, MI): SNAP! The Comic Arts Festival 2006 will take place from 10AM-6PM at Al Matta Hall. A host of small-press cartoonists will be attending, including Jim Ottaviani, Matt Feazell, Pam Bliss, Sean Bieri, Max Ink and many others. Admission is $3. Details here.
• Nov. 4 (Prestonpans, Scotland): Prestonpandemonium II is a small-press comic mart held at the Prestoungrange Gothenburg public house. Famed Judge Dredd writer Alan Grant will make a special appearance, but you’ll really want to go so you can buy minis and drink, right? Hey, minicomics cartoonists: The cost of a dealer’s table is just £10. Details here.
• Nov. 4 (Las Vegas, NV): Ben Katchor will be bringing his Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer multimedia presentation to the Vegas Valley Book Festival, from noon-1:15PM at the Contemporary Arts Collective on Charleston Boulevard. Admission is free. Details here.
• Nov. 4 (Cambridge, MA): Cartoonists Abby Denson and Tim Fish will be reading from and discussing their latest works at the Harvard Coop, beginning at 7PM. Details here.
• Nov. 4 (Gainesville, GA): Gainesville State College will play host to editorial cartoonist Mike Luckovich and cartoonist/Schulz Associates Director Paige Braddock, who’ll be lecturing on cartooning from 11AM-4PM as part of the National Cartoonist Society/S.E. Chapter’s Annual Convention. Details here.
• Nov. 4 (Houston, TX): The Third Annual Houston Comix and Zine Festival will be taking place from noon-9PM, as part of the surrounding Westheimer Block Party. If you publish a comic or zine, bring copies to trade or sell — you can even bring a small table to set-up! Details here.
• Nov. 5 (Northampton, MA): Cartoonists Abby Denson and Tim Fish will be signing at Modern Myths, beginning at 1PM. Details here.
• Nov. 5 (New York City, NY): Join cartoonists Art Speigelman, Joann Sfar, Jessica Abel and Mark Siegel for a discussion of cartooning’s heritage and the future of the graphic novel, moderated by WNYC radio host Leonard Lopate. It all happens at the 92nd Street Y beginning at 7:30PM. Admission is $25. Details here.

Next week:

• Nov. 6 (New York City, NY): Esteemed French cartoonist Joann Sfar will discuss his work, answer questions and sign books at McNally Robinson Booksellers from 6-8PM. Details here.
• Nov. 7 (New York City, NY): Joann Sfar’s bookstore tour continues with a stop at Barnes & Noble on 6th Avenue, beginning at 7PM. Details here.
• Nov. 11 (St. Louis, MO): Join acclaimed independent filmmaker Terry Zwigoff, book editor Monte Beauchamp, local printmaker Tom Huck and comic creator Dan Zettwoch for a signing at Star Clipper from 4-6PM, as part of the 15th Annual St. Louis International Film Festival. Admission is free, naturally. Details here.
• Nov. 12 (Chicago, IL): Art Spiegelman, Joe Sacco and former Imp editor Dan Raeburn will discuss the controversy surrounding the Danish Muhammed cartoons, as part of the 17th Annual Chicago Humanities Festival. The discussion takes place at the Northwestern University School of Law’s Thorne Auditorium, from 2-3:30PM. Admission is $5. Details here. (Link via Egon.)

Want to see your comics-related event listed here? Email me at dirk@tcj.com and let me know. No sales-only events, please — it’s nice that you’ve marked things down at your store or website, but I won’t be listing it here.